


Of Unspoken Things

by filthiestofweebsdesu



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: But he's not bad GUY, Depression Recovery (implied), Fluff, Gen, Good Slade Wilson, He's still a bad guy, Light Angst, Past Suicide Attempt (implied), So here's Slade taking care of Dick and a kitten, This pairing needs more wholesome content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23212546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filthiestofweebsdesu/pseuds/filthiestofweebsdesu
Summary: It had almost been too late when he'd found him, all those weeks ago.Things were looking up now.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 207





	Of Unspoken Things

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the warnings in the tags! There's nothing too overt in this fic and it's overall pretty lighthearted but just to be safe <3

“You seem to be good with animals,” Slade remarked from his armchair, watching as Dick Grayson scratched a fluffy, one-eyed tabby cat behind its ears, kneeling on the carpet in the living room of one of Slade's nicer safehouses. The cat was rubbing its face against Dick's hand, purring like a motorboat, and Dick was smiling for the first time Slade had seen in a very, very long while.

Scratch that: smiling _genuinely_. Dick, he was a born actor; he was a pro at pretending to be happy when he wasn't and Slade was almost positive he was just about the only person in the kid's circle—with the possible exceptions of Jason, Raven, and, if he had to guess, Alfred—who could pick out when he was faking it, which he did surprisingly often. Always had; Slade supposed you kind of had to, actually, when you were so often leading a team, or a horde of younger siblings.

The thing was, though, that for the near-entirety of the time that Slade had known him, it had always been well-balanced with plenty of instances of the real thing. But, over these past several months, Slade hadn't seen even a _hint_ of a real smile on the kid's face _once_ , and it had been...well, if he was honest, it had been quite strange. Unusual. Unsettling.

_(And, honestly, he should have thought something of it earlier. He’d assumed the kid was just being moody, that perhaps he and Bruce had had another fight. Figured whatever he was upset about was his own damn business._

_That had been a mistake. He should have realized. He should have...)_

But now, Dick chuckled softly, and the upturn of his mouth as he did so was very much a genuine one, even if it was small.

“Heh, well...tends to come with being a circus kid,” he replied fondly. His face was still too pale, too thin, still shadowed beneath his eyes, but it was better. He was getting better.

Slade hummed in acknowledgment. “I thought circuses didn't do animal acts nowadays?” he questioned. “Animal rights legislation and the like.”

Dick shrugged lightly. “They don't, for the most part. But mine still had a few animals back when I was there. Most of them are in zoos now, though.”

“Ah,” the mercenary dipped his head in a half-nod. “I see.”

Slade turned his attention back to the book he'd been distracted from a few minutes prior, and for a short while, the only sound in the room was that of the cat, purring even louder now as she attempted to crawl into Dick’s (currently nonexistent) lap. Dick chuckled at her antics and scooped her up, adjusted his position so he was now sitting with his legs crossed, and gently set her back down between them. It didn't end up mattering much, though, the feline apparently opting to reach up for his shoulders in a “hug” of sorts instead. Dick scratched behind her ears and sighed, content.

And for several minutes, they all stayed like that, a peaceful quiet resting in the air alongside the cat's continuous rumbling, only occasionally accompanied by the brief _flick_ of a turning page or the distant noises of late-night traffic. Eventually, ( _predictably_ , Slade mused,) Dick interrupted. (The man couldn’t help himself, he supposed.)

_(Not like when you found him.)_

“So,” Dick began, a mischievous glint sparking behind his eyes as his face split into a grin that would put even the Joker to shame. “What’s got the big, _bad_ Deathstroke taking in stray kittens? Bruce rubbing off on you?”

Whatever Slade had been expecting to come out of the kid's mouth, it certainly hadn't been that. He barked out a brief laugh, then eased back into his leather chair, folding his book in his lap and contemplating his response. Despite what Dick’s teasing seemed to suggest, Slade decided he didn't mind settling on the truth. He shrugged.

“She was malnourished and alone. Leaving her seemed cruel and unnecessary. ’Haven’s winters are a bitch; I'm sure you're aware.”

As a matter of fact, Dick was; he could only quite vividly recall one early-morning shift at the BPD last January, when most all the other officers at his precinct had been called over to Gotham for backup (something about Mr. Freeze, funnily enough). His car's heater had quit on him earlier in the week, and he'd arrived at the station that morning, fingers numb and lips tinged purple, to find that the coffee machine there had broken. And the icing on the cake? Even though the building had a working heater, his higher-ups said they needed to “cut on spending” and hardly let anyone use it. (Much to the chagrin—and the not-so-subtle mumbling and grumbling—of the officers who returned to the station later that afternoon.)

It hadn't been a fun day, to say the least.

“Oh yeah, I'm aware. It's worse than Gotham even, I’d bet. The poor thing,” Dick ended in a slight whine, looking down at the noisy little bundle of fur still clinging to him. He continued to stroke her with deft hands as he cooed in a high, sweet voice: “You were so lucky he found ya, huh? Yeah. You're such a good kitty, aren't you? Yes you are,” and Slade could swear her purring went up a couple of decibels. (And it really was a soothing sound, he had to admit.)

The two men were silent for a grand total of about a minute before Dick decided to interrupt the calm again. “Animals really are incredible.”

Slade raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“They have this kind of sense about people. They really can tell a good person from a bad one. Even if a good person does bad things...they just know, you know?”

Slade didn't exactly think that was true, but he didn't comment on it. Instead he asked, “insinuating something, Grayson?”

Dick looked at him pointedly, grinning. “Do you _think_ I'm insinuating something? _Wilson_?”

Slade only chuckled, dismissing the topic with the shake of his head as he began to reach for his previously-abandoned book.

“No, really,” Dick insisted, sitting up a little straighter, expression turning serious. “You make bad choices, but...but you're a good man. I believe that. I didn't used to, but...but I do.”

Slade lifted his head and stared at him, and his face became solemn. “I kill for a living, Grayson,” he murmured.

“Like I said, bad choices.”

Slade kept staring.

“Okay, really, _really_ bad choices. _Terrible_ choices. Horrible, _abominable_ choices. But...” Dick sighed, pausing for a second to run a hand through his hair as he searched for the right words. “...that doesn't mean that's who you _are_ , you know?” 

Slade continued to stare at him, but his expression was now unreadable. When he spoke, his voice was weighed down by some indiscernible emotion. “You know _nothing_ about who I am, kid.” 

“Oh don’t pull that,” Dick scoffed. “That’s totally not true and you know it. So quit it with the tough-guy-mystery-man bullshit. We’re past that.” He then softened that with, “Besides, I get enough of it from Bruce already.”

Slade’s eye narrowed. He was still relaxed, but he definitely wasn’t in the good mood he’d been in minutes prior. “Don’t confuse me with him. I’m not Bruce, boy, and I’m not J—”

“I _know_ that,” Dick snapped, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Of course I know that. I know the things you've done. I _know_ what you’re capable of. Don’t _ever_ think I’d forget.” He sighed, steadying himself, before returning to his gentler tone. “But I’ve known you too long to think you're heartless, Slade.”

Then, Dick’s smile softly returned. “Plus, you took Kit here in. You took _me_ in. Forgive me for thinking that doesn’t exactly read as something a totally heartless person would do. ’Least not without some...I dunno, weird ulterior motive.” 

Slade opened his mouth to reply, but Dick was faster.

“And by the way, before you try to convince me, there's no ulterior motive in _adopting a stray cat_. Nice try, though.” Dick said the last bit with a huff of a laugh, his voice just as light as it had been minutes earlier.

A stillness washed over the room.

Slade's demeanor shifted. His muscles tensed, and he leaned in slowly, predatorily, a hungry tiger readying to strike. In the sudden quiet, Kit's purring seemed extraordinarily loud.

“Maybe I wanted to lure you in,” Slade purred, slowly, inching closer and closer to the smaller man with every low, menacing word. “Earn your _trust_. Make you feel... _safe_.” His single eye was sharp and dangerous, teeth glinting in the lamplight like a shark’s. Every single inch of him read: _deadly_.

And to almost anybody else, the display would have been frightening.

But Dick, he had grown up in the circus—spotting an act came as naturally as breathing to him—and so he only rolled his eyes at the pretend-tiger above him and returned his gaze to the cat that was stretched contentedly over his chest, letting the tension leak from the room like air out of a heated balloon.

“You know, you’ve had so many chances—heck, so many _reasons_ to kill me," he laughed, and then he looked the other man dead in the eye, everything else in the room forgotten, blue versus icy blue.

“You haven't yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Slade can be pretty hecking problematic in canon (Terra asdfghjkl D:) and sometimes he's depicted as outright evil, and as cool a villain as he is (Teen Titans 2003 heck yes), I think being a non-sociopathic, war-hardened secret softy who distances himself from & can't really properly express his emotions suits him well too and I really like when he's portrayed that way; him being at war with his ability to feel things (and inability to show it or make sense of it, or do so properly) makes him lot more interesting imo. Hopefully he's not too OOC here oof, I tried my best ^^;;
> 
> Also I definitely imagine Slade with his Teen Titans voice because it is The Best™, thank you Ron Perlman 
> 
> (Also hopefully Dick saying "heck" at the end isn't too jarring, like at first I thought it was but then I was like, ok but BTAS Dick would totally say that tho lmao)


End file.
